Theology and Christian Apologetics Archives | CrossExamined.org

If you’ve ever spent time talking with skeptics about the Bible, they’ve more than likely brought up Old Testament laws that appear out of step with our “modern ideals.” For example, many suggest that the Bible treats women like chattel (property) and promotes misogyny. Then they’ll quote verses that appear, on the surface, to make women out to be second-class citizens.

But does the Bible really promote the idea that women are no better than chattel? Does Scripture declare women as the inferior gender? The truth is, it doesn’t, and I can explain why.

God’s Ideals Vs. Case Laws

Typically, those who reject Christianity rush to various case laws to make their point that Scripture is fundamentally against women. Looking to case laws, instead of God’s ideals, is a huge mistake, though. To be fair, the skeptic usually doesn’t know the difference, and you might not either. So allow me to distinguish between the two.

God’s Ideals

God’s ideals refer to his straight forward commands or principles he prescribes in Scripture. That is, these ideals reflect God’s heart on the matter and are universal in scope. Let me give you a few examples with respect to women:

God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them. — Genesis 1:27

For this reason a man shall leave his father and his mother, and be joined to his wife; and they shall become one flesh. — Genesis 2:24

Every one of you shall reverence his mother and his father. — Leviticus 19:3

He who finds a good wife finds a good thing and obtains favor from the LORD. — Proverbs 18:22

What do we learn about God’s attitude toward women? They are made in his image, should not share their husbands with any other women, deserve respect from their children, and are a sign of God’s favor to their husbands. In other words, God loves women and values them just as much as he values men.

Case Laws

Case laws are different from God’s ideals in that they only refer to specific situations and are not universal in scope. And in many instances, these case laws never assume that God’s ideals have been met. Instead, they assume that moral concessions have been made and then try to make the best out of that less than ideal situation. Let me give you an example of a case law:

If a man has two wives, the one loved and the other unloved, and both the loved and the unloved have born him sons, if the firstborn son belongs to the unloved, then it shall be in the day he wills what he has to his sons, he cannot make the son of the loved the firstborn before the son of the unloved, who is the firstborn. But he shall acknowledge the firstborn, the son of the unloved, by giving him a double portion of all that he has, for he is the beginning of his strength; to him belongs the right of the firstborn. — Deuteronomy 21:15-17

Notice that this case law refers to a polygamous situation (If the man has two wives). In other words, this man has disregarded God’s ideal for monogamous marriage (Gen. 2:24). Now that the deed is done, how should Israel make the best of this messy situation?

You might say he should divorce one of his wives to get back to monogamous marriage. But which one? And once she’s divorced, will anyone want to marry her since she’s no longer a virgin? Furthermore, how will she provide for herself? As you can see, it’s not so simple.

Instead, for the sake of the women’s protection, God says for everyone to stay put. And in this particular case law, God says that the firstborn child, regardless of whether he comes from the favorite wife or not, should receive the firstborn’s inheritance.

This is not ideal. Polygamy is always wrong (more on that in a minute). But now that the man already violated God’s ideals, the law attempts to make the best out of an already messy situation.

Prescription Vs. Description

Another reason people assume the Bible is misogynistic is because they don’t distinguish between descriptive and prescriptive texts. As with case laws, people will misunderstand God’s heart on the matter if they don’t understand what kind of text they’re reading.

Prescriptive

Prescriptive texts are ones where God gives a clear command — or prescribes — how people are to live in relation to him. With respect to polygamy, here are some examples of prescriptive texts:

For this reason a man shall leave his father and his mother, and be joined to his wife; and they shall become one flesh. — Genesis 2:24

[The king] must not take many wives, or his heart will be led astray. — Deuteronomy 17:17

And you shall not take a woman as a rival wife to her sister, uncovering her nakedness while her sister is still alive. — Leviticus 18:18

Again, God’s ideal that he clearly prescribes is that a man marry only one wife. This is not only true for the kings of Israel (Deut. 17:17); it is true for all men everywhere (Gen. 2:24).

Descriptive

Because the Bible contains so much historical content, many texts describe certain immoral actions. With respect to polygamy, we find several instances in the Old Testament, where men have multiple wives. This would seem to support the notion that Scripture promotes treating women like chattel, but that would be a mistake.

This would be a mistake because the Bible never prescribes polygamous relationships. It describes them. It describes Lamech (the first polygamist), who had no intention of obeying the Lord’s commands. Scripture describes Jacob, David, Solomon, and others, who disregarded God’s prescribed law (Gen. 2:24, Deut. 17:17, Lev. 18:18). All the while, in each case where men ignore God’s prescribed ideal, we witness disharmony, strife, and pain.

In short, just because we read about men treating women like chattel doesn’t mean that’s how God feels about them. God made women in his image and loves them as he loves men.

What About The Bride-Price?

When skeptics talk about the Old Testament bride-price, they make it sound equivalent to buying a mule (chattel) at a public auction. In reality, it reflected no such thing.

The bride-price was a payment that the groom’s father made to the wife’s father and signified that the groom had serious intentions to marry his bride. That is, he wasn’t entering this relationship lightly.

This payment not only strengthened the relations between the two families, but it also provided compensation for the work the woman would have otherwise contributed to her family. Additionally, the payment served as a safety net for the family if the husband ever died or lost his ability to provide financially.

Here is an example of a case law that speaks of the bride-price:

If a man seduces a virgin who is not engaged, and lies with her, he must pay a dowry for her to be his wife. If her father absolutely refuses to give her to him, he shall pay money equal to the dowry for virgins. — Exodus 22:16-17

Again, here is an example of a less than ideal situation (case law). But notice that this law blames the man, not the woman. The man seduced a virgin, and because of that, the law says he needs to pay up with the bride-price.

Skeptics argue that this act makes women out as chattel, but the intent of this law is actually for their protection. You see, women who weren’t virgins had a much harder time getting married in that culture, and therefore, their economic future would have been in jeopardy. Requiring the man to pay the bride-price and marry the woman actually protected her in the long run.

The father, however, had the right to refuse his daughter while at the same time collecting the bride-price since the man was guilty in the matter. Ultimately if the father and the daughter agreed to it (Gen. 24), she could marry the man and have financial security for the rest of her life.

Women As Chattel?

An elementary reading of the text might lead some to conclude that the Bible is misogynistic. When one understands a few basic hermeneutical principles, however, one discovers the Bible is actually for, not against women.

The Importance Of A Balanced Faith

Theology and Christian Apologetics

By Bob Perry

It is very easy to get engrossed in all the arguments for God. People like me love to demonstrate the scientific and philosophical evidence for God. And there are good reasons for us to expose the ethical vacuum we create when we remove God from the culture. These are the kinds of things on which I focus a lot of time, energy, reading, and teaching. It’s good to know things about God. But people like me must also realize that knowing about God can become a distracting detour from the primary purpose of our lives — the pursuit of God. We have heads and hearts. And a balanced faith requires that we engage both.

One Wing, Won’t Fly

When I was in the Marine Corps, one of my best friends was involved in a mid-air collision. He was flying a Harrier that collided with an F-18 Hornet at a closure speed of nearly 900 miles per hour. His recollection of the impact was astounding. He vividly remembered seeing the left-wing of his Harrier twist and disintegrate after it contacted the left horizontal stabilizer of the Hornet. Time seemed to stop. And for a brief moment, he remembered thinking, “I may be able to fly this thing.”

AV-8B Harrier and F-18 Hornet — AV-8B Harrier & F-18 Hornet

His optimism was short-lived. As the thought was still echoing in his head, his airplane snap-rolled to the left. The sky became a swirling blur. He immediately reached for the ejection handle and pulled.

The team that investigated the accident estimated that in the short time it took him to recognize his plight, my friend’s Harrier had dropped several thousand feet. His jet was traveling more than 500 miles per hour when he ejected. A few minutes later, he was sitting in a life raft in the Atlantic Ocean eating Chiclets. Not a scratch on him.

I don’t know if my buddy’s story constitutes a “miracle,” but I do know this. Airplanes with one wing can’t fly.

Desiring God

The futility of trying to fly a one-winged airplane popped into my head recently when I began reading a book that has been sitting in my bookcase, untouched, for several years. John Piper’s Desiring God is a Christian classic and an eye-opening treat.

I have to admit my first reaction to Piper’s call to “Christian Hedonism” was negative. The word “hedonism” just sounds bad to me. But I would encourage you to listen to his entire argument. He makes a clear, biblical case for grounding our lives in the idea that:

The chief end of man is to glorify God

enjoying him forever.

Some of it is still sinking in. I have to consider it more deeply. And I have no intention of analyzing that concept point-by-point. I simply want to focus on the message that came through loud and clear to me. That there is an affective element to the Christian faith that people like me minimize to our own detriment.

The Touchy-Feely Church

To be honest, I have become jaded, even antagonistic, toward this notion. I have a natural aversion to the feelings-based thoughtlessness of the American church in general. History shows that many of the denominations that exist in America today were born during the Great Awakenings of the 18th and 19th centuries. The emotional appeals of those “Awakenings” were relevant and proper. But they also helped to produce an anti-intellectualism in the American church. Today we live in its aftermath.

I believe and defend the claim that this trend is not only dangerous but unbiblical. Christianity has never been based on the mindless acceptance of a blind leap of faith. It has always been anchored in intellectual assent to the objective truth that Christ embodied. Faith is a thoughtful, willful decision. I have been convinced of that for a long time.

But then Piper hit me with this (p. 247):

“It is astonishing to me that so many people try to define true Christianity in terms of decisions and not affections. Not that decisions are unessential. The problem is that they require so little transformation to achieve. They are evidence of no true work of grace in the heart. People can make “decisions” about the truth of God while their hearts are far from him.”

Ouch.

You Need Both

This is something we know, but that is easy for someone like me to forget. A wooden, intellectually-centered faith is just as dangerous as an emotion-centered faith. Neither works by itself.

We were told to “love our God with all our heart, mind, soul, and strength.” We don’t get to pick our favorite way to love our God. It takes our heads and our hearts working together in holistic unity. Piper again (p. 76):

“Truth without emotion produces dead orthodoxy and a church full (or half-full) of artificial admirers … On the other hand, emotion without truth produces empty frenzy and cultivates shallow people who refuse the discipline of rigorous thought. But true worship comes from people who are deeply emotional and who love deep and sound doctrine. Strong affections for God rooted in truth are the bone marrow of biblical worship.”

Put another way, a life of faith needs two wings to fly.

A Spectrum Of Faith

All of us are different. Some are driven more by feelings and emotions. Others by reason. But these shouldn’t be polarizing. As I have heard Greg Koukl put it, “emotion makes life delicious; reason keeps life safe.” We ignore either of them at our own peril.

Instead, they form the two ends of a spectrum of spirituality. A real and vibrant faith lies somewhere in the middle. When Christ told us that he came so that we “may have life, and have it to the full,” this is what I believe he meant.

So where are you on the spectrum? And what do you have to do to work your way toward the balanced life of faith that should be yours?

What, Me Worry?

Theology and Christian Apologetics

By Al Serrato

Alfred E. Neumann, the famous face of Mad Magazine for many decades, popularized this slogan. While he wasn’t referring to the question of salvation, this saying does seem to describe the way many people view that question today. Yes, there may be a God; they will concede. But “I’m not worried,” they say. “I’m a good person, after all, and God will judge me accordingly.”

In my last post, I considered one of the ways to address this modern mindset, by making the point that expecting God to grade on a curve may not be a smart bet. This time, I’d like to explore a different approach, by examining what people mean when they say they are “good” and why a God they never bothered to get to know should care.

We can be “good” at things that do not involve others. For instance, we can be good at building sandcastles or doing crossword puzzles. But usually, when we say we are good at something, we mean that our performance is meeting or surpassing expectations. While we might not be aware of it, we are sneaking in a standard against which we judge what we have done. For instance, if we’re talking about sports, we mean we possess the skillset, discipline, and experience necessary to play effectively and to win. If we’re dealing with academics, we mean that we are sufficiently bright, hardworking, and knowledgeable to demonstrate our mastery of the subject on the test or in the class we have taken. If we’re thinking about the work environment, we mean that we know what is expected in our role, and we have the skills, experience, and dedication to accomplish our goals.

In each of these scenarios, we are buying into a game that we know we did not ourselves create. Someone who came before us outlined the parameters of what was expected and set the rules. While new games, new challenges, develop over time, we seem to be built to intuitively look for the rules of the “game” and seek to compete. And while often there is a specific reward we have a mind, a moment’s reflection should demonstrate that we seem to be, by nature, hardwired to try to surpass a standard we know is there.

Pursuing this line of thought to the next step, what else do these ways of “doing good,” of surpassing expectations, have in common? In addition to measuring up to a standard deriving from some preceding standard-setter, they all involve some form of relationship with the one, or the group, that sets the standard. We measure the good based on what performance is expected of us by someone who is in charge and who, in the end, will measure the performance. Whether the ref, the teacher or the boss, if we really want to stand out as good – no, as truly excellent and worthy of praise and a reward – we’d be well advised to find out what the particular judge thinks qualifies as good. An Olympic skater waiting for the judges’ score has in mind a clear understanding of exactly what performance is being measured, and what gaffs or missteps would qualify as a failure. And, the more powerful the judge and the more important the competition or event, the more crucial it is to understand the standard and to get it right. After all, it’s more important for the employee or the prison inmate to understand what good means than the person who is trying to finish a crossword puzzle.

Now, of course, for any particular event or competition we have in mind, the only sure way we can know with certainty what qualifies as good is to get to know the one who will be judging the performance. However, successful in other areas of their lives, the modern secularist simply does not see the point in doing this with the ultimate question – why am I here and who or what put me here? They are not troubled by the apparent disconnect – why does it matter in every other pursuit in life but not to the central pursuit, the most basic and ultimate one regarding origins…and the ultimate destination. The modern secularist doesn’t know anything about the One who, in the end, will judge his performance, the One who is going to say whether all these so-called good works amounted to anything of value. More importantly, they don’t even care. How odd this seems, to be so concerned about being “good” at lesser things and not put any effort into asking the right question about the “whole thing.” No doubt if pressed, they would say that God hasn’t bothered to communicate the standard to them, hasn’t made Himself known in the right way. Perhaps they think that justifies not trying harder to see if this is true.

I suspect most nonbelievers expect that God if he is actually there, will appreciate all the “good deeds” they did over the years and be happy with them. Perhaps they are picturing a sort of cosmic subway station; their many good deeds over the years will act like coins in the gate, allowing it to swing open for them if they’ve guessed wrongly and there really is a judge awaiting their arrival.

Christians, by contrast, know that our good works don’t earn us admission into heaven. But the secularist isn’t thinking that way. When he tells you he is good, he means he expects God to see this as well. You should remind him that by his own standard, he may be in a bit more trouble than he thinks. The coins he is depositing are from a different realm, and they don’t work with the guardian of the gate. It’s actually the wrong currency.

Think of it this way: can I ask the teacher of a different class to give me an A based on the good work I am doing in my class? Can I ask your employer to pay me for the good work I am doing for my employer? Should I expect my friend to give my son an allowance for the chores he performs at my home? If you weren’t doing the work for someone you knew, the way you knew he wanted it, why would you expect to be compensated, let alone rewarded?

Why then should the secularist who knows nothing about God, and cares even less, expect God to recognize any of his works as good?

How to Disagree Better about COVID-19, Conspiracy Theories, and Pretty Much Everything Else in Life

Theology and Christian Apologetics

By Natasha Crain

Aside from feeling the fatigue of quarantine in general, I am feeling the fatigue of people arguing about the quarantine. This includes Christians fighting with other Christians, Christians fighting with non-believers, and non-believers fighting with non-believers.

If you spend any time on social media, you know exactly what I’m talking about.

Our culture has largely lost the ability to disagree well. I’ve experienced this for years when discussing worldview issues with both Christians and skeptics. But because these worldview conversations tend to take place in online pockets, the nature of those disagreements isn’t always front and center in public life. The universal experience of COVID-19 right now, however, has shone a light on just how poorly many people conduct disagreements—for all to see. And what I see happening in COVID-19 disagreements is the same thing I’ve so often seen happen in worldview disagreements:

People don’t know how to have disagreements at the right level.

Let me explain.

Facts, Interpretations of Facts, and Applications of Interpretations (the FIA Pyramid)

A simple example will demonstrate the problem with many disagreements, as well as the power of using what I’m going to call the FIA thought pyramid: Facts, Interpretations of Facts, and Applications (both personal and policy).

Let’s say I came downstairs this morning and found stuffing from my puppy’s bed all over the floor. There are holes in her bed, and a little stuffing hanging from the corner of her mouth. Those are facts (and a true story!).

I then interpret this to mean that my puppy made a hole in the bed and pulled stuffing out. I didn’t actually see it happen, but I’ve inferred from the facts that this was the case.

Based on this interpretation, I’m upset with her and decide something must change (a personal application).

I then make a new rule (a policy application) that she is not allowed to have a bed of this kind until she has outgrown her puppy months.

Now, imagine that I’ve cleaned all this up before my kids have even opened their eyes for the day. When they eventually make it downstairs, they see I’ve taken the puppy’s bed away. Here’s how they process the situation:

Fact: Mommy took the puppy’s bed away.
Interpretation: Mommy is mean.
Personal application: I’m mad at mommy.
Policy application: The new rule is unfair.

This situation could lead to a giant tug of war between my kids and me if we chose to argue over the policy application (the fairness of the new bed rule):

Them: “It’s so unfair! She needs her bed!”

Me: “It’s perfectly fair. She isn’t old enough to have one like this.”

But the central disagreement here isn’t over the rule. It’s over the facts. In this case, the kids have a missing fact. They didn’t know that the puppy destroyed her bed this morning. Yes, we could all agree that mommy took the bed away (one fact), but the additional fact that she destroyed her bed and was harmfully eating stuffing was missing. If I shared with the kids what happened, so they now had that additional information, their new thought pyramid could quickly change to this:

Fact: Mommy took the puppy’s bed away because she was eating from it and could hurt herself.
Interpretation: Mommy is trying to protect the puppy.
Personal application: Mommy can be trusted to make good decisions for the puppy.
Policy application: The new rule is fair.

In this example, there was initially disagreement at the top of the pyramid (policy application) because the kids were working from an incomplete set of facts. (This isn’t the only kind of fact problem in the real world, of course; people can have different sets of facts, different types of facts, different numbers of facts, and inaccurate “facts” spread throughout their working knowledge of something.) Because of this, it would be pointless to debate the new rule in and of itself. We needed to work backward in the pyramid to see where the real disagreement was and have a conversation at that level.

Now that we’ve seen a simple example let’s look at disagreement at various places on the pyramid with COVID-19.

Disagreement Over Facts

When it comes to COVID-19, it’s fair to say that NO ONE knows all the facts because it’s a new virus. Most of us, as non-specialists in epidemiology, glean what we know from a variety of sources online, and those sources vary in credibility. Oftentimes what we believe is a fact is really an interpretation of other facts. With the massive amount of new data available, and different people trusting different sources, we are bound to have significant disagreements with one another at the fact level. Yet, most arguments I see happen are at the policy level: continued lockdown or no continued lockdown.

This is a hopeless argument if you haven’t taken the time to consider the FIA thought pyramid.

Imagine, for example, that person one is working from this pyramid:

Fact: The number of deaths to date this year is no different than the number of deaths to date in prior years.
Interpretation: COVID-19 is no different from the flu.
Personal application: Not worried about catching COVID-19.
Policy application: Lockdowns aren’t warranted and are destroying the economy.

Now imagine that person two is working from this pyramid:

Fact: The number of deaths to date this year significantly exceeds the number of deaths to date in prior years.
Interpretation: COVID-19 is responsible for most of those additional deaths.
Personal application: COVID-19 is something we should all be very concerned about.
Policy application: Lockdowns are necessary to save lives.

These two people could angrily argue over whether lockdowns are necessary, but it would be a waste of breath (or typing). They are working from different assumed facts, and likely won’t agree on policy applications because of it. It’s entirely possible that if they agreed on the facts, they would agree on the policy as well and wouldn’t even be having the discussion. That said, there’s not a direct path from facts to policy, either. In the middle, we have to consider interpretations of facts.

Disagreement Over Interpretation of Facts

Let’s say now that these two people are working from the same set of assumed facts, but they’re still arguing over lockdown vs. no lockdown. It’s possible they disagree at the level of interpretation.

Perhaps the person one is working from this thought pyramid:

Fact: The number of deaths to date this year significantly exceeds the number of deaths to this date in prior years.
Interpretation: The additional deaths still aren’t extreme.
Personal application: Not very worried about catching COVID-19.
Policy application: Lockdowns aren’t warranted and are destroying the economy.

And perhaps person two is working from this thought pyramid:

Fact: Ditto person 1.
Interpretation: COVID-19 is responsible for a tragic increase in death worldwide.
Personal application: COVID-19 is something that we should all be very concerned about.
Policy application: Lockdowns are necessary to save lives.

In this case, our two people could agree that there are more deaths this year (and even that they’re due to COVID-19), but interpret the severity of that increase very differently. One person might see a 20% increase in deaths as minimal, whereas another might see it as devastating. That interpretation can make all the difference in how one views policy decisions.

Disagreement Over Applications of the Interpretations

Let’s say now that these two people are working from the same set of assumed facts and interpretations, but they’re still arguing over lockdown vs. no lockdown. It’s possible they disagree at the level of applications (personal and/or policy).

Now person one is working from this thought pyramid:

Fact: The number of deaths to date this year significantly exceeds the number of deaths to this date in prior years.
Interpretation: The additional deaths still aren’t extreme.
Personal application: Has major underlying risk factors and is very concerned about any COVID-19 exposure.
Policy application: Doesn’t believe lockdowns are warranted for everyone (will take personal measures to protect him/herself but thinks lockdowns overall are destroying the economy).

Meanwhile, person two is working from this thought pyramid:

Fact: Ditto person 1.
Interpretation:Ditto person 1.
Personal application: Ditto person 1.
Policy application: Believes lockdowns are warranted for everyone to save lives.

In this example, the two people could both personally be at risk and feel very concerned about their own well-being, but have very different opinions on how that relates to policy for everyone else. You could also have a person two who doesn’t have risk factors and isn’t personally concerned (personal application level), but believes lockdowns are the most compassionate policy for people like person 1—even though person one him/herself disagrees! Personal and policy applications don’t always go hand-in-hand.

How to Disagree Better in 3 Easy Steps

So, where does this leave us? We can disagree better in three “easy” steps.

Ask good questions to determine where the disagreement lies.

When you disagree with someone, remember this FIA pyramid (Facts, Interpretations, and Applications). There’s a really good chance that if you’re arguing about policies or politics in general, you have a disagreement at a more fundamental level. Ask the other person to clarify exactly what they’re advocating for, why they’re advocating for it, and what led them to the conclusion that they should advocate for it. Then compare that to your own FIA pyramid (do some soul searching to figure out what that looks like!) and identify where the departure in the agreement is.

Engage in the appropriate conversation for the level where the disagreement lies.

If you realize the disagreement is over facts, responding with how you interpret the facts you’re using is typically not going to move the conversation forward. You should instead be discussing data sources, whom to trust, why to trust them, and so on.

Or, if you find that you agree on facts and interpretations but have a difference of opinion on policy application, then you should be discussing things like desired policy outcomes and why there’s good reason to believe a given policy leads to those outcomes. In other words, it’s not enough to identify where the disagreement lies; the ensuing conversation should reflect that level as well.

Don’t be a jerk.

Wherever you and another person are disagreeing on the FIA pyramid, there’s just never a reason to treat someone else poorly. This should be obvious. Question facts, interpretations, and applications—don’t attack people or groups of people who have a thought pyramid different than your own. Seek understanding and respond with love and humility.

Does Paul’s Silence About Jesus Prove That He Didn’t Exist?

Jesus Christ, Theology and Christian Apologetics

By Erik Manning

Over 99% of historical scholarship acknowledges that Jesus was a real person. It doesn’t matter if that scholar is liberal or conservative, or Christian, atheist, agnostic or Jewish. The <1% of historians that believe Jesus is a myth are mostly atheists or agnostics. And it’s only the ‘internet infidel’ crowd that takes their arguments seriously.

One of the arguments that Jesus mythicists will often push is that Paul was mostly silent about the historical Jesus. Here’s GA Wells, one of the minority voices, who writes:

“Paul’s letters have no allusion to the parents of Jesus, let alone to the virgin birth. They never refer to a place of birth…. They give no indication of the time or place of his earthly existence. They do not refer to his trial before a Roman official, nor to Jerusalem as the place of execution. They mention neither John the Baptist, nor Judas, nor Peter’s denial of his master…. These letters also fail to mention any miracles Jesus is supposed to have worked, a particularly striking omission, since, according to the gospels he worked so many.” (The Historical Evidence for Jesus, 22)

And why didn’t Paul quote Jesus’ praise of celibacy in 1 Corinthians 7? Or why not quote the Sermon on the Mount when Paul was teaching the Romans to bless their persecutors to give his message more authority? (Romans 12:14) Or why did Paul say, “we don’t know how to pray as we ought” (Romans 8:26-27) when Jesus taught his followers how to pray in Matthew 6:8-13?

One of those famous internet atheists, Dan Barker, sides with the Wells, writing: “The earliest Christian writings, the letters of Paul, are silent about the man Jesus: Paul, who never met Jesus, fails to mention a single deed or saying of Jesus…and sometimes contradicts what Jesus supposedly said. To Paul, Jesus was a heavenly disembodied Christ figure, not a man of flesh and blood.”

At first glance, the mythicists seem like they have a point. But there are a few problems here.

Arguing From Silence Is Usually A Poor Way To Prove Your Point

For starters, arguing from silence is usually a terrible way to argue. For example, Union General Ulysses S Grant says nothing about the Emancipation Proclamation. The famous explorer Marco Polo traveled to China but never mentions the Great Wall. The archives of Portugal do not allude to the travels of Amerigo Vespucci.

An estimated 16,000-60,000 people died in 79 AD due to the eruption of Mt. Vesuvius. But we only hear about this event in a personal letter of Pliny’s. The relative silence of historians we’d expect to mention these events doesn’t cause scholars to doubt their occurrence.

Regarding arguments from silence, philosopher Tim McGrew writes: “Such arguments from silence are pervasive in New Testament scholarship, but they are tenuous at best….it is a risky business to speculate upon the motives of authors for including or omitting various facts. To create an appearance of inconsistency by this device…is methodologically unsound.” (Blackwell Companion to Natural Theology)

Paul’s Letters Were Occasional

There’s also the fact that most of Paul’s letters were occasional. Paul often wrote to combat error, or to provide specific guidance to churches. So, for example, Paul writes his entire letter to the Galatians to fight the doctrine of the Judaizers. Or there are the specific answers Paul gives about marriage, meat sacrificed to idols, spiritual gifts, and public worship in 1 Corinthians.

And think about it for a minute. If there weren’t some false teachers in Corinth saying there’s no resurrection, the great resurrection teaching in 1 Corinthians 15 would be missing from our Bibles! Jesus’ miracles, parables, virgin birth, arguments with the Pharisees, and so forth weren’t relevant to Paul’s purposes in writing those particular letters.

The Silence Of Paul…About Paul

In his book Did Jesus Exist?, agnostic Biblical scholar Bart Ehrman points out that Paul wasn’t just silent about some historical facts about Jesus, he also didn’t tell us a lot about himself. Like for instance: Who taught Paul? Where did he grow up? What did he do for a living? What did he do during his three years in Arabia or Damascus before meeting with Peter and James in Jerusalem? Or in the following fourteen years? Where did he go? Paul doesn’t tell us in his letters. We only learn about a few of these things from reading Acts.

Wells mentions that we don’t learn about Jesus’ miracles from Paul. But Paul said he had miracles in his ministry, and that was proof he was an apostle. (Romans 15:19, 2 Corinthians 12:12) Does Wells expect us to believe that Paul believed he and the other apostles had miracles, but Jesus didn’t?

The Silence Of Other Early Christians

But we can take it a step further. We have three letters from John, or at least attributed to him. Scholars believe he was writing to combat the proto-gnostics who were saying that sin wasn’t really a thing, and Jesus wasn’t a physical being. (1 John 1:1-3, 8) But the writer of these epistles, who wrote just like the writer of John’s Gospel, (I think they are both written by John, but scholars debate that) doesn’t mention Jesus turning water into wine, healing a man born blind, feeding the 5,000, walking on water or raising Lazarus from the dead. He doesn’t even quote the words of Jesus from that gospel. Why was the writer of 1-3 John silent about these things? Because they didn’t suit his purposes, not because he didn’t think that they happened.

Furthermore, most scholars believe that the author of Luke’s Gospel is the same author of Acts. Acts is Luke’s sequel. But in Acts, Lukes makes little use of the Jesus tradition he’s obviously familiar with. Clearly the lack of references to Jesus’ teachings in Acts doesn’t show that Luke was ignorant about what Jesus taught!

And what about the writings of some of the early church fathers? 1 Clement, Barnabas, and Polycarp’s letters to the Philippians. These letters fail to mention:

Jesus’ temptation in the wilderness.
His parables.
That he healed the sick and cast out demons.
That he was transfigured on the mountain.
That he got into arguments with the Pharisees.
That he cleansed the temple.
That Judas betrayed him.
That Pilate had him crucified.

Do we conclude that these writers didn’t think Jesus existed? No, we don’t. In the case of Polycarp, he quotes Matthew, Mark, and Luke, but these other traditions were not relevant to why he was writing, so he fails to mention them.

Paul’s “Silence” Doesn’t Prove What The Mythicists Claim

Finally, Paul wasn’t silent about the historical Jesus. As I’ve written elsewhere, Paul knows a lot about Jesus. He knows that Jesus was a descendant of David, that he had a mother, a brother named James and other siblings, a disciple named Peter, 12 disciples, that he shared the last supper with his followers, was betrayed, abused, crucified, and he alludes to several of Jesus’ teachings. (Rom 1:3-4, Gal 1:18-19, 1 Cor 9:5, 1 Cor 15:5, 1 Cor 11:22-24, Rom 15:3, 1 Cor 1:23, 1 Cor 7:10-12, 1 Cor 9:14, 11:22-24, 1 Thess 4:15)

But Paul’s main focus was Christ and him crucified. (1 Corinthians 2:2) It is what the cross and resurrection accomplish for the believer is what Paul is obsessed with. He’s interested in unpacking that teaching to the young churches. But his alleged silence isn’t a good argument to think that Jesus didn’t really exist. Bart Ehrman, no friend of traditional Christianity concludes that the so-called silence of Paul is a really bad way to argue, writing:

“What do these silences show? They do not show that these authors did not know about the historical Jesus because they clearly did. If anything, the silences simply show that these traditions about Jesus were not relevant to their purposes…What we can know is that Paul certainly thought that Jesus existed. He had a clear knowledge of important aspects of Jesus’s life—a completely human life, in which he was born as a Jew to a Jewish woman and became a minister to the Jews before they rejected him, leading to his death. He knew some of Jesus’s teachings. And he knew how Jesus died by crucifixion. For whatever reason, that was the most important aspect of Jesus’s life: his death. And Paul could scarcely have thought that Jesus died if he hadn’t lived”. (Did Jesus Exist? p. 145)

While I’ve disagreed with Dr. Ehrman many, many times, I have to offer a hearty amen here.

Did Israelites ever live in Egypt?

4. Is the NT True?, Theology and Christian Apologetics

By Mikel Del Rosario

Engaging Skeptical Challenges to the Exodus

When I was growing up, a lot of people I knew believed the Biblical narrative of the Exodus was at least based on a true story. Even skeptics accepted basic details like the Hebrews being enslaved in Egypt.

Today, not so much. Skeptics now challenge the possibility of the Exodus even happening. And since many people get their views on the Bible from popular articles that try to undermine the truth of Scripture, there’s a big question mark in some people’s minds when it comes to even the basic details of the Old Testament: Did the Israelites really live in ancient Egypt?

Shlomo Sand’s book, The Invention of the Jewish People, is one that challenges the historicity of the Exodus. He says Egyptian records don’t mention Israelites ever living in Egypt in all (p. 118). But should we really expect to find ancient Egyptian texts saying there was a huge Hebrew presence in Egypt? Would Egyptian scribes want to preserve any memories of the Exodus?

In this post, I’ll share one reason why clear evidence for Israelites in Egypt is tough to find and what one little-known piece of data suggests about the possibility that Hebrews ever lived in Egypt.

Egyptian Scribes Wrote to Serve the King

Some skeptics say we should have overwhelming evidence of Israelites living in Egypt if they really ever lived there. Why? Because, supposedly, Egyptians kept detailed records of everything. But the rest of the story is that Egyptian scribes weren’t historians trying to document everything for posterity. In fact, they were royal scribes who worked for the king. What was the point of their job? To make the king look good!

So they weren’t trying to document absolutely everything that went on in Egypt. A lot of their time was spent bragging about Pharaoh’s victories. They put inscriptions about the great things that he did on temples and other public buildings where everyone could see them. Recording his failures, defeats, or most embarrassing stories wasn’t part of their job description!

The point of their job was to record the Pharaoh’s victories. Some of the reports were probably spun for the public. Some of the reports were outright propaganda. Why expect the Egyptian records to mention the Exodus? It’s no surprise we haven’t discovered texts or inscriptions that talk about Pharaoh losing a huge number of Hebrew slaves. No one gets paid to make their boss look bad!

Egyptians rarely mentioned other groups by name

Most ancient Egyptian texts seem to tell us there was a lot of racial pride going on. A lot of them looked down on non-Egyptians. In fact, ancient Egyptians called themselves “the humans!” No joke. And they called everyone else “tent-dwellers” or “foot-walkers.” The fact that Egyptian texts don’t mention the Israelites as a people group isn’t a surprise because they don’t mention Canaanites, Israelites, Syrians, or nomads, or anyone else by name either.

But interestingly, some Egyptian texts have been found that actually do mention slaves in Egypt who seems to have Hebrew-sounding names. Could these people be Israelites living in Egypt? I invited Gordon Johnston to talk about this and other historical issues for a chapel at Dallas Theological Seminary. He explained what we can learn from the discovery of a list of runaway slaves, now called the Papyrus Brooklyn 35.1446:

“We’ve got a papyrus from the northeast delta region of Egypt, where the Hebrews would’ve been. It dates to 1700 BC around the time that Joseph came down to Egypt, the time that the Hebrews would’ve been in Egypt. This papyrus has a list of 95 names of runaway household slaves. The Egyptians had foreign slaves, and when they ran away, they put their names out there on the docket to try to find them. Of those 95 names, 45 are Semitic names… 10 of these names are Hebrew names or Hebrew-like names. So we’ve got the right [people] in the right place: You’ve got the feminine form of Jacob, ’Aqoba…the feminine form of Asher, ’Ashera…the feminine form of Job, ’Ayuvung. And you have the compound name for David…Dawidi-huat.”

Some skeptics insist that Egyptian records don’t mention Hebrews in Egypt. But in light of the fact that ancient Egyptians didn’t usually refer to foreigners with specific ethnic designations, it isn’t surprising that we don’t find explicit mention of the Hebrews in Egyptian texts. It’s also unlikely that Egyptian scribes would want to preserve embarrassing memories like the Exodus event. But the evidence shows that some slaves at least had names that sounded like Hebrew names. That makes it tough to insist that no Israelites were ever enslaved in Egypt.

Note: This conversation also included a discussion of potentially positive evidence for the Exodus. Watch this cultural engagement chapel hosted by the Hendricks Center at Dallas Theological Seminary.

Conclusion

Today, historical skepticism has cast doubt not only the general reliability of the Bible but even on the plausibility of ordinary details surrounding biblical stories. While some interpretations of the historical data can seem to challenge the details of the Old Testament, knowing about some of these discoveries can help us see the plausibility of the story. The data fits what Scripture says even if we haven’t found conclusive proof of Hebrew slaves in ancient Egypt. The evidence suggesting the presence of Hebrew-like names in ancient Egypt are only the beginning.

We, as Christian apologists, must help believers better understand and respond to these kinds of public square issues in order to engage the culture as ambassadors of Christ. Knowing some things about the background and cultural context of the Old Testament can help us deal with many skeptical challenges that people hear. Keeping in touch with some of these archaeological findings can also help the church in encouraging faith in the Scriptures.

Is The Coronavirus A Sign Of The End Times?

Theology and Christian Apologetics

By Jason Jimenez

In the pages of prophetic Scripture, many signs point to the end of the age. Now, we must first understand that ever since Jesus ascended to heaven—we, the church, have been living in the end times. So, a pandemic like a coronavirus isn’t necessarily leading or ushering us into the end of the age. Instead, pandemics are merely escalating things until (at some point) Christ returns for His church. And at some point thereafter—the Antichrist (or the son of perdition) signs a peace treaty with Israel and launches into the seven years of tribulation (Dan. 9:26-27).

The sad but honest truth is the world will continue to see an uptick of pandemics like the Coronavirus, like Ebola, like SARS, and the Spanish Flu, which the world suffered greatly when over 100 million people throughout Europe and the United States died terrible deaths. Think back to the Black Plague in the 14th century that killed off anywhere from 40-60 percent of the population in Europe.

So, the plague known as Covid-19 is no doubt a birth pang mentioned by Jesus in the opening of the Olivet Discourse, found in Matt. 24:4-8: “Jesus answered: “Watch out that no one deceives you. For many will come in my name, claiming, ‘I am the Messiah,’ and will deceive many. You will hear of wars and rumors of wars but see to it that you are not alarmed. Such things must happen, but the end is still to come. Nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom. There will be famines and earthquakes in various places. All these are the beginning of birth pains.”

And then in Matthew 24:9-14, Jesus gives further descriptions of even greater turmoil that will occur in the first half of the Tribulation period mentioned in greater detail in Revelation 6-9.

Taking a closer look at Matthew 24:4-14, you see that Jesus lays out nine distinctive features that will continue to progress until His sudden return: (1) the growing deception of false teachers and teachings, (2) wars and conflict between rival nations, (3) the increase of famines, (4) plagues, (5) earthquakes, (6) persecution and martyrs, (7) false prophets, (8) increase in wickedness, and (9) the worldwide advancement of the gospel. These are all signs or indicators that things are coming to an end, not signs that we are at the end.

Which makes you wonder? What good can come from something like the Coronavirus? I mean, when so many people are infected, dying, and millions of people are out of work, how can I find good amid all this craziness and sadness?

Well, 1 Corinthians 15:21, we are reminded that from Adam came death, but through the death of Jesus Christ, we have life because He rose from the dead. So, even amid pain and suffering, God can work things out for His good pleasure because He is absolutely Good.

The fact is God is omnibenevolent and will one day put an end to sin, evil, and suffering from the world.

God and God alone knows the finality of evil and has His reasons for allowing it to run its course, but (in the process) will make use of the infectious diseases like Coronavirus to bring about the greater good. Take, for instance, when Joseph told His brothers, “You meant evil against me, but God meant it for good” (Genesis 50:20).

Take notice of some of the good things that are coming out of this pandemic.

People are turning to God and repenting of their sins.
2. People are turning from idols and sexual immorality.
3. People are forgiving one another and giving generously to those in need.

I hope that gives you some biblical perspective on what we are seeing in the world right now, and as you live your life in faith to God—be sure to stand strong and look up, for your salvation draws near.

Jumping Into the Deep End of Divine Sovereignty

Theology and Christian Apologetics

By Brian Chilton

I have never been a great swimmer. Quite honestly, I swim like a rock—I sink to the bottom and do not resurface. My parents signed me up for swimming lessons when I was a kid. The swimming instructor asked all the kids to jump into his arms while treading in the deep end of the pool. One by one, each child jumped into the instructor’s arms. One by one, the instructor would help the child swim to safety out of the deep waters. When it came to my turn, I was unable to accomplish the task. On the one hand, I was afraid of deep water. On the other hand, I had not known the instructor long enough to build trust in him.

In Christian and religious circles, the term faith is frequently used. But what does faith mean? Biblically speaking, the term faith is used to describe a trust that a person had in another person or being. In the case of one’s faith toward God, it is meant that a person trusts God to do the right thing.

Concerning this conversation, another term is of immense value—the term sovereignty. While Calvinists employ the term more frequently, the sovereignty of God holds tremendous applications for Christians from all walks. The term sovereignty denotes that a person or a being holds supreme and complete control or authority over a group or locale. The Bible relays three areas in which God is sovereign.

God is sovereign over creation.

God is the Creator and Sustainer of all that exists. Without God, nothing would exist that exists. The prologue to John’s Gospel notes this well, saying, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning. All things were created through him, and apart from him, not one thing was created that has been created” (John 1:1–3).[1] The New Testament also describes the sustaining power of God as he sustains “all things by his powerful word” (Heb. 1:3).

When a person understands the scope of God’s sovereign power over creation, then worries and anxieties tend to depart. No pandemic is greater than God’s power. No disease, distress, or trouble is beyond the power of God to control. The One who spoke creation into existence still rules from on high.

God is sovereign over history.

Scripture indicates God’s sovereign power over history. Romans 8:28 holds that God constructs the events of history to work in favor of his children. Paul writes, “We know that all things work together for the good of those who love God, who are called according to his purpose” (Rom. 8:28). At the command of God, nations rise and fall (Ps. 22:8; Hab. 1:6). If God controls the direction of history, then why are we so fretful over political issues? God is still in control.

God is sovereign over redemption.

As noted earlier, people hold various conclusions concerning election, free will, and salvation. All orthodox Christians should still believe that God is the One who saves and is sovereign over the redemptive process. People cannot save themselves. Rather, salvation is fully a work of God. Paul writes, “He has saved us and called us with a holy calling, not according to our works, but according to his own purpose and grace, which was given to us in Christ Jesus before time began. This has now been made evident through the appearing of our Savior Christ Jesus, who has abolished death and has brought life and immortality to light through the gospel” (2 Tim. 1:9–10). If God saved us, then we do not have to worry about obtaining his approval. We already have it.

I am honestly amazed at the amount of hostile and critical posts that Christians have made during the COVID-19 pandemic. While our world has been divided for quite some time, the level of anxiety that is demonstrable in our posts and interactions illustrates the lack of faith that we as modern Christians have in God’s sovereign rule. One day, our soul will be called. When we step into the portal of death, we will have no choice but to trust God’s sovereign power. Do we trust him to catch us? If God were in the deep end of the pool, would we have the faith to trust him to catch us?

Jeff Hester Debates William Lane Craig On The Topic “Is Belief In God Rational In A Scientific Age?”

2. Does God Exist?, Theology and Christian Apologetics

By Wintery Knight

I was very excited to see a recent debate by Christian philosopher William Lane Craig against atheist astronomer Jeff Hester. When I summarize a debate, I do a fair, objective summary if the atheist is intelligent and informed, as with Peter Millican, Walter Sinnott-Armstrong, or Austin Dacey. But the following summary is rated VS for Very Snarky, and you’ll soon see why.

The debate itself starts at 29 minutes:

The audio is very poor.

Dr. Craig’s opening speech

Dr. Craig went first, and he presented four arguments, as well as the ontological argument, which I won’t summarize or discuss. He later added another argument for theism from the existence of the universe that does not require an origin of the universe.

A1. Counter-examples

Theists who are elite scientists cannot be “irrational,” for example Allan Sandage, Gustav Tammann, George Ellis, Don Page, Christopher Isham

A2. Kalam cosmological argument

Whatever begins to exist requires a cause.
The universe began to exist.
Therefore, the universe requires a cause.

A3. Fine-tuning of the universe to permit complex, intelligent life

The fine-tuning of the universe is due either to physical necessity, chance, or design.
It is not due to physical necessity or chance.
Therefore it is due to design.

A4. Moral argument

If God does not exist, objective moral values and duties do not exist.
Objective moral values and duties do exist.
Therefore, God exists.

Dr. Hester’s opening speech

Dr. Hester went second and presented two arguments, which both committed the genetic fallacy, a logical fallacy that makes the arguments have no force.

Hester starts his opening speech by asserting that Albert Einstein was irrational because he denied quantum mechanics.

Hester explains that he became an atheist at 15. This would have been before the evidence for the origin of the universe became widespread before we had very many examples of fine-tuning before the discovery that the origin of life problem is a problem of the origin of complex, specified information, etc. What kind of reasons can a 15-year-old child have for becoming an atheist? It’s hard to say, but I would suspect that they were psychological. Children often desire autonomy from moral authorities. They want to be free to pursue pleasure. They don’t want to be thought of as superstitious and morally straight by their non-religious peers.

Later on in the debate, Hester volunteers that he hated his father because his father professed to be a Christian, but he was focused on his career and making money. In the absence of any arguments for atheism, it’s reasonable to speculate that Hester became an atheist for psychological reasons. And as we’ll see, just like the typical 15-year-old child, he has no rational basis for atheism. What’s astonishing is how he continues to hold to the atheism of his teens when it has been falsified over and over by scientific discoveries in the years since.

Dr. Craig’s deductive arguments do have premises that reach a conclusion through the laws of logic. On the contrary, he just asserts that God exists as his conclusion, and then says that this assertion is the best explanation of a gap in our scientific knowledge. Some of the gaps in our scientific knowledge he uses in his arguments are: 1) he doesn’t understand why the Sun moves through the sky, so God exists, 2) he doesn’t understand why the wind blows, so God exists.

What counts as “rational” are things that have not been disproved. The progress of science has shown that the universe did not need a cause in order to begin to exist, and also there is no cosmic fine-tuning.

A1. The success of evolution in the software industry proves that there is no God.

All hardware and software are developed using genetic algorithms that exactly match Darwinian processes. All the major computer companies like Google, Microsoft, Amazon, Apple, etc. are just generating products using mutation and selection to evolve products over long periods of time. If you look over a typical software engineering degree, it’s all about Darwinian evolution, and nothing about design patterns, object-oriented design, etc.

This widespread use of evolution in the software industry undermines all of the arguments for God’s existence. Evolution caused the origin of the universe. Evolution explains why the universe is fine-tuned for life. Evolution, which requires replication already be in place in order to work, explains the origin of the first self-replicating organism.

A2. Theist’s view of the world is just a result of peer pressure from their tribes.

All of Dr. Craig’s logical arguments supported by scientific evidence don’t matter, because he got them from a primitive tribe of Christians that existed 2000 years ago. Everyone gets their view of origins, morality, meaning in life, death, etc. from their tribes. Except for me, I’m getting my beliefs from reason and evidence because I’m a smart atheist. I don’t have an atheist tribe in the university that would sanction me if I disagreed with nonsense like homosexuality is 100% genetic, transgenderism, man-made catastrophic global warming, fully naturalistic evolution, aliens seeded the Earth with life, infanticide is moral, socialism works, overpopulation will cause mass starvation, nuclear winter, etc. Also, my argument isn’t the genetic fallacy at all, because smart atheists don’t commit elementary logical fallacies that even a first-year philosophy student would know.

A3. Our brains evolved, so our rational faculties are unreliable, so God does not exist.

The logical reasoning that Dr. Craig uses to argue for theism are all nonsense, because human minds just have an illusion of consciousness, an illusion of rationality, and an illusion of free will. Everything Dr. Craig says is just deluded nonsense caused by chemicals in his brain. He has cognitive biases the undermine all his logical arguments and scientific evidence. He just invented an imaginary friend with superpowers. Except me, I’m a smart atheist, so I actually have real consciousness, real reasoning powers, and no cognitive biases. Also, my argument isn’t the genetic fallacy at all, because my arguments would not get an F in a first-year philosophy course.

Discussion

I’m not going to summarize everything in the discussion, or the question and answer time. I’m just going to list out some of the more interesting points.

Dr. Craig asks him how it is that he has managed to escape these biases from tribalism, projection, etc. He talks about how brave and noble atheist rebels are. The moderator asks him the same question. He repeats how brave and noble atheist rebels are.

Dr. Hester is asked whether he affirms a causeless beginning of the universe or an eternal universe. He replies he states that the universe came into being without a cause because causality doesn’t apply to the beginning of the universe. He also asserts with the explanation that Borde, Guth, and Vilenkin have undermined the kalam cosmological argument, mentioning a web site.

Dr. Craig replied to this phantom argument after the debate on Facebook:

Speaking of which, although I haven’t had time to consult the website mentioned by Dr. Hester concerning Guth and Vilenkin on the kalam cosmological argument, I know the work of these two gentlemen well enough to predict what one will find there. Since neither one is yet a theist (so much, by the way, for the dreaded confirmation bias!), they have to reject at least one of the premises of the kalam cosmological argument.

Guth wants to deny premiss (2) The universe began to exist–for which Vilenkin has rebuked him. Guth would avoid the implications of their theorem by holding our hope for the Carroll-Chen model, which denies the single condition of the BGV theorem. This gambit is, however, unsuccessful, since the Carroll-Chen model does so only by positing a reversal of the arrow of time at some point in the finite past. This is not only highly non-physical but fails to avert the universe’s beginning since that time-reversed, mirror universe is no sense in our past. The model really postulates two different universes with a common beginning.

So Vilenkin is forced to deny premiss (1) Whatever begins to exists has a cause. He says that if the positive energy associated with matter exactly counterbalances the negative energy associated with gravity, then the net sum of the energy is zero, and so the conservation of energy is not violated if the universe pops into being from nothing! But this is like saying that if your assets exactly balance your debts, then your net worth is zero, and so there does not need to be a cause of your financial situation! As Christopher Isham points out, there still needs to be “ontic seeding” in order to create positive and negative energy in the first place, even if on balance, their sum is zero.

Dr. Hester is asked how he explains the evidence for fine-tuning. He literally says that “Life is fine-tuned for the Universe,” i.e., that evolution will create living beings regardless of the laws of physics, constants, etc. For example, he thinks that in a universe with a weaker strong force, which would have only hydrogen atoms, evolution would still evolve life. And in a universe that recollapses in a hot fireball, and never forms stars or planets, evolution would produce life. Physicist Luke Barnes, who was commenting on the YouTube chat for the video, said this:

“Life is fine-tuned for the Universe” – complete ignorance of the field. Read a book.

Hester tries to cite Jeremy England to try to argue for life appearing regardless of what the laws of physics are. Barnes comments:

Jeremy England’s work supports no such claim.

Hester appealed to the multiverse, which faces numerous theoretical and observational difficulties. For example, the multiverse models have to have some mechanism to spawn different universes, but these mechanisms themselves require fine-tuning, as Robin Collins argues. And the multiverse is falsified observationally by the Boltzmann brain problem. It was so ironic that Hester claimed to be so committed to testing theories. The multiverse theory cannot be tested experimentally and must be accepted on faith.

Dr. Hester is asked how he grounds morality on atheism. He says there are no objective moral values and duties. He instead lists off a bunch of Christian beliefs which he thinks are objectively wrong. Even his statements about these moral issues are misinformed. For example, he asserts that homosexuality is causally determined by biology, but this is contradicted by identical twin studies that have a rate of 20-40% where both twins are gay.

Dr. Hester is asked about free will, which is required in order to make moral choices. He denies the existence of a free will, which undermines his earlier statements about morality. Morality is only possible if humans can make free choices to act in accordance with a moral standard. So, he claims that Christians are immoral, then he claims that they have no freedom to act other than they do.

Dr. Hester also volunteered that his father believed in the prosperity gospel, and tithed in order to be rewarded with money by God. Dr. Craig immediately says, “no wonder you’re in rebellion against Christianity.” Indeed.

Dr. Hester is asked about his view that human beings are unable to unable to perceive the world objectively. How is he able to perceive the world objectively, when all of the rest of us are unable to? His response is that he is just smarter than everyone else because his ideas have never been falsified by testing.

Scoring the debate

Dr. Craig’s five arguments went unrefuted. Hester’s argument about genetic algorithms was ludicrous to anyone who understands software engineering. His arguments about tribalism and unreliable mental faculties were self-refuting and committed the genetic fallacy. At several points, Hester denied mainstream science in favor of untested and untestable speculations. It was the worst defeat of atheism I have ever witnessed. He was uninformed and arrogant. He didn’t know what he was talking about, and he tried to resort to speculative, mystical bullshit to cover up his failure to meet Dr. Craig’s challenge.

No, Dan Barker. Covid-19 Doesn’t Disprove God

Atheism, Theology and Christian Apologetics

By Erik Manning

Not one to let a good crisis go to waste, former minister and atheist activist Dan Barker tells us that the coronavirus proves that the Christian God doesn’t exist. Why? Because God promises to answer prayer. People have prayed for COVID-19 to stop. The virus continues to spread and people continue to die. Therefore Christianity must be false. Here’s Barker in his own words:

The Christian god makes a crystal-clear pledge: “I will answer your prayers.”

Jesus stated boldly: “All things, whatsoever ye shall ask in prayer, believing, ye shall receive.”(Matthew 21:22) There is no ambiguity here. “All things” means “all things.” He even clarified: “Even if you say to this mountain, ‘Be lifted up and thrown into the sea,’ it will be done.”

Jesus, who said “I and the Father are one,” confirmed this in many other passages: “So I tell you, whatever you ask for in prayer, believe that you have received it, and it will be yours.” — Mark 11:24

Barker multiplies many other prayer promises from the Four Gospels. Then he goes on:

The claim is indisputable. The omnipotent and omnibenevolent Christian god promises to answer “everyone who asks,” “all things,” “whatever you ask for in prayer.” If a believing Christian prays, then “it will be done for you,” “you shall receive,” “it will be yours,” “I will do it.”

There is no more solid promise in scripture.

The Christian god vows to answer prayer not with “Yes, No, or Wait,” as some apologists claim. He promises an unequivocal “Yes.”

Can Prayer Alone Fix Everything?

Barker is right about one thing. No passage in Scripture says ‘yes’ ‘no’ or ‘wait.’ But notice that Barker only emphasizes the ‘whatever you ask’ part in these verses. But he conveniently says nothing about the ‘believe that you receive it’ portions.

According to Barker’s strange reading of these texts, if we ask God for anything, it should immediately be performed. But that’s not how any of this works. Jesus didn’t indiscriminately heal anyone and everyone in the Gospels. We read in Mark 6:1-6 that Jesus could barely heal anyone in his hometown, Nazareth. Why? Mark says it was because of their unbelief. While in Nazareth, he went on to say in Luke 4:23-27 that there were plenty of lepers in Israel during the time of Elisha, but it was only Naaman the Syrian who was healed.

Repeatedly throughout the Gospels, Jesus healed individuals in response to their faith. See Mark 5:34, Luke 17:19, Luke 18:42, Matthew 8:13, Matthew 15:28 for just a few samples. Faith then must play a major factor. No one in the Gospels approached Jesus and said, “Hey Jesus. While you’re healing people, why not heal Israel of all their sicknesses?”

This would’ve convinced the Pharisees, the Sadducees, the High Priest, Pilate, Herod, and so forth. But that’s not the way God chose to operate. It is unlikely to have turned them into true worshipers but opportunists. And he’s not going to override his own word or his own divine nature. He expects people to respond in persistent, heartfelt faith.

It’s interesting that repeatedly in the Gospels, Jesus would command people to not tell of the miracles they experienced. (Mark 7:31-37, 9:2-9, Luke 5:12-15, 8:49-56). He also didn’t perform signs when the Pharisees and scribes demanded one. (Matthew 12:38-41) God gives enough evidence for those who want to believe can, but leaves enough ambiguity for those who want to go their own way can do so.

Barker continues:

Multitudes of Christians have been fervently praying. The Jesuits have asked Jesus to “Heal those who are sick with the virus.” The Christian relief organization World Vision is asking Almighty God to “keep this new coronavirus from continuing to spread.” The Southern Baptists are entreating “Lord, you are the Great Physician, so we pray for healing for the victims of COVID-19.” President Trump’s spiritual adviser Paula White said: “I believe in the same way if we call on God Almighty to divinely intervene just as He does so many times, that the plague can be stopped.”

So why are thousands continuing to succumb indiscriminately to the coronavirus? The tragic deaths include devout believers, as well as ministers, priests, and bishops. They are beseeching their Lord for protection, but the impudent virus, no respecter of persons, is recklessly cavorting around the planet oblivious to their beliefs.

Prayer Isn’t A Cure-All And Jesus Never Said That It Was

All this shows is that, at best, the Jesuits, World Vision, the Southern Baptists, etc. are praying unscripturally. Receiving answers to prayer, more often than not, is a matter between the individual and God. There’s nothing wrong with asking God to intervene for others, but I don’t think these leaders are expecting this pandemic to miraculously stop in its tracks, independently from God using people.

I can’t pray for God to keep my entire city free from COVID-19 anymore than I can pray for God to stop every traffic accident, cure every cancer, every heart disease, every stroke, every influenza, and every case of diabetes. You get the idea.

If God allowed that, we would live in a consequence-free world where God was orchestrating tens of thousands of miracles each day. My prayers cannot necessarily sober up every drunk driver, cause every person to make healthy choices, or keep college students from congregating on Florida beaches during spring break, or prevent some Chinese people from eating bats (or acting irresponsibly in a lab) or prevent the World Health Organization from initially advising against closing Chinese borders.

Because we live in a world where natural laws work in predictable ways, diseases can spread, and accidents can happen. Solomon was right when he wrote, “When a man’s folly brings his way to ruin, his heart rages against the LORD.” (Proverbs 19:3)

Is The Coronavirus A Judgment From God?

So is this virus a judgment from God? Barker points out that some Christian ministers have said that it is.

Rev. Ralph Drollinger, the evangelical pastor who conducts bible study at the White House for President Trump’s cabinet, blames the coronavirus on sin: “Whenever an individual or corporate group of individuals violate the inviolate precepts of God’s Word, he, she, they or the institution will suffer the respective consequences,” he wrote. “Most assuredly America is facing this form of God’s judgment.”

Some Christians preach that prayer is contingent. Natural disasters are actually punishments from God, they proclaim. He doesn’t answer prayer at the moment because America has turned its back on him.

Now, I haven’t looked into Drollinger said in context. But we all have seen ministers get on TV and blame people for disasters. And these Christian leaders are an embarrassment to me and many other believers. Barker would be rightly appalled. Notice that Jesus dealt with a similar situation in the Gospels:

Now there was some present at that time who told Jesus about the Galileans whose blood Pilate had mixed with their sacrifices. Jesus answered, “Do you think that these Galileans were worse sinners than all the other Galileans because they suffered this way? I tell you, no! But unless you repent, you too will all perish. Or those eighteen who died when the tower in Siloam fell on them—do you think they were more guilty than all the others living in Jerusalem? I tell you, no! But unless you repent, you too will all perish.

(Luke 13:1-5)

Jesus And The Problem Of Suffering

I’m sure this isn’t going to be popular, but Jesus didn’t say that tragedies befall people because they were worse sinners than anyone. But He said they were sinners nonetheless and unless we repent, we’ll likewise perish. The wages of sin is death, but God’s gift is eternal life for those who trust in Jesus. (Romans 6:23)

DA Carson’s commentary on Luke 13:1-5 is so insightful that I’ll quote it here at length:

First, Jesus does not assume that those who suffered under Pilate, or those who were killed in the collapse of the tower, did not deserve their fate. Indeed, the fact that he can tell those contemporaries that unless they repent they too will perish shows that Jesus assumes that all death is in one way or another the result of sin, and therefore deserved.

Second, Jesus does insist that death by such means is no evidence whatsoever that those who suffer in this way are any more wicked than those who escape such a fate. The assumption seems to be that all deserve to die. If some die under a barbarous governor, and others in a tragic accident, it is not more than they deserve. But that does not mean that others deserve any less. Rather, the implication is that it is only God’s mercy that has kept them alive. There is certainly no moral superiority on their part.

Third, Jesus treats wars and natural disasters not as agenda items in a discussion of the mysterious ways of God, but as incentives to repentance. It is as if he is saying that God uses disaster as a megaphone to call attention to our guilt and destination, to the imminence of his righteous judgment if he sees no repentance. This is an argument developed at great length in Amos 4. Disaster is a call to repentance. Jesus might have added (as he does elsewhere) that peace and tranquility, which we do not deserve, show us God’s goodness and forbearance.

It is a mark of our lostness that we invert these two. We think we deserve the times of blessing and prosperity, and that the times of war and disaster are not only unfair but come perilously close to calling into question God’s goodness or his power—even, perhaps, his very existence. Jesus simply did not see it that way.

Bingo. Barker goes on to say that God is the ‘most unpleasant character in all fiction’ but it seems like Barker is upset that God judges sin. It’s as if Barker thinks God should wink at people living like Canaanites and never punish anyone. But according to Barker, God should prove himself by instantaneously healing every person on the planet on demand, or else we should conclude He isn’t real!

CS Lewis right when he wrote, “What would really satisfy us would be a God who said of anything we happened to like doing, ‘What does it matter so long as they are contented?’ We want, in fact, not so much a Father in Heaven as a grandfather in heaven — a senile benevolence who, as they say, ‘liked to see young people enjoying themselves,’ and whose plan for the universe was simply that it might be truly said at the end of each day, ‘a good time was had by all.”

Jesus Is Still In The Healing Business

No, suffering and death are in the world because of sin. Jesus said disasters are a reminder of this, and unless we repent, we’ll also perish. And yet, Jesus still goes about “doing good and healing all those that are oppressed by the devil” in response to faith. (Acts 10:38) Barker says God isn’t healing anyone during this pandemic. But just ask this Georgia man, who claims God healed him of COVID-19. Or this woman that was given up for dead. Even the doctors remarked that something miraculous happened.

I personally know a person in my congregation whose 80-year father was in a nursing home that contracted the disease. Their dad was made completely well within a short time after prayer was made. Or what would Barker say to all the healings documented by Craig Keener’s scholarly two-volume work Miracles: The Credibility of the New Testament Accounts?

So no, Barker is wrong. The coronavirus isn’t “virulent enough to single-handedly kill the Christian God.” As a former pastor, he should know that he is twisting scripture and using the tragedy to stand on his favorite soapbox.

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Conclusion

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God is sovereign over creation.

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Discussion

Scoring the debate

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